KIDS FOR KIDS. Me and my other students at the Hill Spring International School, Mumbai are raising awareness and funds to give footwear to thousands of children in the rural districts of Maharashtra. This footwear is made out of discarded shoes that would have otherwise gone into landfills. The refurbished shoes will transform into comfortable and trendy footwear for thousands of children who walk barefoot to schools. This footwear is made by the Greensole Foundation. The cost of footwear including refurbishment & actual distribution is only 199 INR a pair.

Just INR 20000 impacts 100 students.

Pic: The quality & design of the footwear is world-class & brings a big smile to a student.

The lack of something as simple as footwear (along with school suppliers and toilets) is one of the principal reasons why children leave school. In the rural areas of Maharashtra, the schools are often far from their homes and many children must walk many kilometres to their schools. The walk is across roads, fields, narrow paths and is difficult and unsafe. In summers when temperatures shoot into the 40 and 45C range it can be a nightmare.

Lack of footwear makes this incredibly difficult and often is a chief reason for them to leave a school. Walking barefoot also leads to soil-transmitted diseases and parasites. This leads to sickness and ill health.

HOW ARE WE DOING THIS?

I am doing this crowdfunding campaign in partnership with the Mumbai based NGO, Greensole Foundation. They refurbish old and discarded shoes with a minimum carbon footprint. These discarded shoes are kept away from landfills and end up transforming the lives of students in rural areas. They also retail, upcycled footwear towards building a self-sustaining social venture.

Since the Greensole Foundation is an NGO any funding made to this campaign is eligible for tax exemption under 80G of IT Act 196.

The money raised will be given directly after the campaign ends to the NGO. They will then use the funds to transform the lives of children from rural villages by providing them with recycled footwear. You will get an update on how many students in which school benefitted from your funding.

ABOUT ME & THIS CAMPAIGN:

My name is Arjun and I am in Grade 10 at the Hill Spring International School at Mumbai.

I have undertaken this campaign because I think wearing footwear is something that is a basic need for anyone. I cannot imagine me walking kilometers to school barefoot every day. These children who are being supported are doing well at school despite adverse circumstances & conditions. The fact that raising 20000 INR can give footwear & transform the lives of 100 children is something that I am very excited about.

Please support my campaign and let us together bring confidence and change into the lives of these fellow students in rural areas of Maharashtra. Please fund this campaign and also share it on social media.

IMPACT ON STUDENTS

Watch the video below :

OUR PARTNER

Let's connect Souls to Soles:

At Greensole, we give discarded shoes a second life by refurbishing them to comfortable footwear and providing them to the people in need, contributing to environmental, social and economic good. The efforts have brought a smile to 1,30,000 beneficiaries so far.

Corporate Partners & Media Reach:

We have partnered with over 55 leading corporates in the last couple of years who have sponsored for over 130,000 pairs of footwear. Some of them are Tata Steel, Adidas, Skechers, India Bulls, Axis Bank, ONGC, HDFC Sales, Allianz,. The corporate organisation's partner with Greensole as a part of their CSR activity wherein they collect old shoes from the employees and also sponsor for the refurbishing cost. The cost of refurbishment & distribution is just Rs.199 per pair.

Greensole Origins :

As athletes, the founders of Greensole, Shriyans Bhandari and Ramesh Dhami ran hundreds of kilometres every year. They also ran through at least 3 to 4 pairs of sports shoes every year. The soles were in good condition but the shoe sides tore within months. The duo always wondered if they could find some use for the intact soles of these quality sports shoes. A bit of research led to the idea of refurbishing them into trendy slippers. That brainwave eventually spawned an eco-friendly enterprise that reuses shoe soles and is appropriately named Greensole.

LOCATION MAP

Under this school program, students across rural schools in Maharashtra will benefit. Greensole is located in Vashi.

TAX BENEFITS:

Funding for this campaign is eligible for tax breaks as NGO is a registered trust & you can avail of benefits under section 80G of the IT act. Funding from those with foreign passports is not eligible. If you are an Indian staying abroad you can fund this campaign. We also accept foreign credit and debit cards.

FEEDBACK THAT YOU GET

To ensure that there is complete transparency I shall get a report from NGO (this takes between 2 to 4 months usually after the funds are raised & transferred to them) telling me who benefitted from the funding. The details will then be posted on the UPDATES section of my campaign. As soon as I post an update, the platform will send an SMS and EMAIL alert to all the funders - i.e. to you. Click on the link on the email and you can read about who benefitted. That's transparent right.

The below image is an example of the FEEDBACK FORMAT that we will be shared with all my funders.

SCHOOLS WHERE WE PLAN TO DISTRIBUTE FOOTWEAR

The below list totals to 26000 students across different schools across Maharashtra. We can distribute to more students if we raise more funds. This will help bring more smiles and cheers to students in rural schools.

FAQs

Will we get to know the details of who benefitted?

Yes. After the money has been collected it will be transferred by Fueladream to NGO. It will take from 2 to 4 months after that to get details of fund use. Once I get this information from them I shall upload this on the UPDATES section of this campaign. You will then get an alert & can read details about the beneficiaries. ( WHICH SCHOOL AND HOW MANY STUDENTS)

What are the crowdfunding charges?

There is a payment gateway fee of 3% (for both the Indian and foreign gateway) , a crowdfunding fee of 9% plus a GST component of 2.16%. There is also an initial fee of 3000 INR which is being waived for us. Including all these fees the cost of making and distributing the footwear is only INR 199.

When do I get the receipts?

It takes up to 2 weeks after the campaign is closed for the monies to be transferred to NGO. The receipts will start getting processed about 4 to 6 weeks AFTER the campaign is closed and will be sent to you directly.

How does crowdfunding work?

Crowdfunding in India is a relatively new concept & is growing very quickly.

It’s a concept that allows a large number of funders (like you) to fund an Idea or a cause or event by giving small amounts of money online. Fueladream.com is a crowdfunding platform in India that allows for such a pooling of funds. You can fund innovations & ideas on FuelADream and be the first to get these products or make them come true. You can also do a good turn by funding charities and causes through crowdfunding. When you fund a charity it’s more like a donation & you get small innovative rewards like a shout-out on an FB page or a thank you email from the beneficiaries

Updates have been committed to after the campaign ends.

This is an open forum for all funders of this campaign. Other registered users can send their comments/ queries directly to the campaign owner as a message.

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